College Republicans advisor Dick Andzenge was featured on the university radio station yesterday and today discussing his own investigation reported here. He also visited our SCSU Association of Scholars meeting Tuesday along with members of the College Republicans. He reported that he spoke at length with Prof. Karasik, who was apologetic about the affair. This was reported here by us (the St. Cloud Times link is broken):

"Yes, I immaturely went for the camera, but I didn't harm him. I didn't grab his neck," she said. "It looked a lot worse than it was. I did not try to hurt the man. Am I sorry? Yes. Do I regret it? Yes. Did I assault him? No."

But Prof. Andzenge pointed out that whenever a faculty member does something that might require an apology or some other acknowledgement of wrongdoing, the Faculty Association immediately turns them into a victim who should get compensated. In my view, this is why it took so long for the poster issue to become a focus. A victim requires a crime and perpetrator, and their search finally fell upon the poster. This positioning by the Faculty Association may hinder the resolution of the case, as it precludes an unqualified apology.

I found the inteview well done by both the news editor at KVSC and by Prof. Andzenge. Tough questions were asked, as an interviewer should. He did probe for bias -- Dick responded that he was representing students that he felt had been wronged. He had asked students to write individually what they saw and remembered, and compared those notes to what he heard on the phone with Prof. Karasik and the written statement by Prof. Greenberg. His is not an official investigation, but the university seems to be saying that the official one is not available to the public due to data privacy laws.

To date, though faculty members have argued that Prof. Andzenge overstates his case by calling his report to be based on "irrefutable facts", nobody has refuted one.